The Everyday Adventurer

Animals Where Are You?

2012-01-27T04:00:00.000-05:00

I've been busy. I've been tired. And I almost forgot! I mentioned to a few people the other day that I was going to be taking a trip on the suddenly ice covered roads around here. I was worried that I was going to have some problems, but it turns out my fears of me and my truck spinning out of control came to absolutely nothing. There was some ice, but the truck handled it very well.

Something else that seems to keep coming to nothing lately is my search for pictures of wild animals, any wild animals. I've been too busy to go very far from home this past month, so I've had to search for nature here on my own property. I'm glad this place is as wild as a good nature park in places.

But I seem to keep going out when the animals have left. We get huge flocks of birds around here every morning, but I've been late getting out there each and every day. It's my own fault, but that's the way it has been.

I do have these two very bad pictures of this little bird that was a complete expert at avoiding my camera. I kept hoping he would come out so I could make him an international celebrity, but he was quite obviously a bit shy. I have plenty of stories like this. These Iowa birds are hard hard hard to get on camera.

I also intended to have a post ready for you yesterday, but for some reason after getting back from my incredibly exciting trip to some place so fun that I forget what it was about I found myself to be so tired that I fell asleep before I could write the post. I guess that's the way it goes.

I think I'm going to try to concentrate extra hard this weekend on catching up with those darn birds, or rabbits, or opossums, maybe a deer or two, or how about the squirrel again, or even that stinky old skunk would be good.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

What's At The End Of The Road

2012-01-25T04:00:00.000-05:00

I've been telling you for awhile that there is a creek at the edge of my property where the road ends. But I've never shown it to you until now. You can see it down there at the bottom of what I guess is classified as a gully.

I don't usually like coming all the way to the edge of this place because it's very steep, and I don't know of an easy way out if I fell down there. And it's deep enough that a serious injury would probably accompany any fall. You can see in the pictures that it is not only steep, but the edges of this place are eroding, so a fall here isn't too hard to imagine.

This steep gully is what keeps a lot of wild animals from gaining easy access to my property. They still have many ways in, but this way is not an easy one. There is a corn field on the other side of the gully, so I'm guessing I'll see some deer over there some time this year.

It was very cold here when I took these pictures. Now it's back around the freezing mark and we've been getting freezing rain on top of the snow. That ought to make it fun for driving around here in the next day or so. I'm hoping a ittle bit of warmer weather will melt everything all away.

You may have noticed that I was notably absent from posting yesterday. I told myself before I began posting every day again that I would periodically take a random day off here and there just to give myself a break. It keeps me rested and keeps blogging from seeming like an effort. I feel better, but my year old injuries are still effecting me.

One more thing. I've come up with an idea for a huge change over at Nature Center Magazine, but implementing it might require a redesign of the entire site. I don't really want to have to redesign the site because I'm extremely happy with the current design, but I haven't found an acceptable way around it yet. The change has the potential to transform the site to something much greater than ever. I hope I can figure out a way to make things work so I can have the change and keep the current design. I'll have a huge announcement when and if something happens. I just had to get that out.

I'll be back tomorrow with something that's a little bit strange and a little more stupid (the usual). See you then!

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

Crazy Night

2012-01-23T04:00:00.000-05:00

I've been having a bit of trouble with something lately. I've been seeing plenty of animals, but only at night when I can't get any reasonable pictures of them. I've seen rabbits, opossums, too many feral cats to count, and now I think I've seen a skunk.

A big part of the problem is that I was up all night Saturday, so I ended up sleeping in the morning. In the morning is when the birds and many other animals like to come around here. So I wasn't exactly conscious when all the animals were out having a good time in the morning Sun.

Now before I continue, and before you think it's my own fault for missing these animals after staying up too late, I'd like to say that it wasn't my fault. I have somebody else to blame, and a little story of why. And who is that somebody?

I came up with a good idea to give myself a rest from walking Isabella multiple times a night. I parked my truck out of the way in the garage and let Isabella out on the chain instead of walking her. It gives her all the time she wants out there, and I get to stay inside where it's warm. It was working wonderfully until about the third time she was out.

She had been out for quite some time when I went to the front door to check on her. I found her there out in the cold sitting in the snow. I thought that maybe she had frozen herself as I noticed her sitting there staring out into the darkness. So I went and forced her to come back inside. And I mean forced, because she didn't want to come.

It was only a little over an hour later that I let her back out after she pestered me the whole time. This time when I checked on her she was laying in the snow intently staring off into the same area of the darkness. After a few seconds she began creeping in that same low down pose towards something. She was stalking it like a cat, but she seemed like she didn't want to get too close to whatever it was.

It was then that I noticed the strange sounds coming from the direction she was looking. It was the grunting sounds of a wild animal. I thought maybe it was a raccoon or a possum, but then I saw something white moving around down the road in the direction of the sounds. That was the dog's target, but she didn't seem to want to get very close to it.

I quickly dragged Isabella back into the house and went to the computer to find out what might be making those sounds. After checking several animals of the right size I came to the sounds a skunk makes. It matched perfectly. Not only that, Isabella then came running! She stood there turning her head from side to side while she stood there shaking and staring at the computer. I tried some other animals sounds, but she was only interested in the skunk sounds. That was my confirmation.

I decided to keep her inside for the rest of the night, especially since it was long past my bedtime. But the rotten dog wouldn't let me sleep! She was running back and forth in a frenzy. She kept walking over and pushing her head into the side of my bed. And if that didn't work, she would bark at me and loudly scratch on the walls. She was going completely crazy. This lasted all night long.

I finally looked at the window and noticed the sky was considerably lighter than before. The Sun was about to come up. I got up knowing I would get no sleep until I gave in. So figuring the skunk was long gone, I finally let Isabella back out. I smartly keep the end f her chain right at the door so I don't have to go out.

After she went running out I saw that I was right. She ran back and forth investigating everything until she began to slow with disappointment. She finally realized her enemy was truly gone. Now that she knew everything was safe she finally decided to come back inside.

When she got back in she immediately went over to her doggy blanket and went to sleep. I decided to get some sleep myself. This time it finally worked.

Nature Center Magazine - A snowboarding crow? You'll have to see it to believe it!

What She Saw

2012-01-20T04:00:00.000-05:00

Isabella pointed something out to me the other day. Most of the time when I go out to fill the wood stove Isabella is right there with me. She loves being outside except on the coldest days. On those days she only likes going out if there is a guaranteed walk with the leash in the deal. So what was it that she told me?

I didn't know that yet! I was too busy with the firewood. When I turned around I saw that she was intently staring at something. I kept looking at her to see what she was so fascinated with. Luckily I remembered to run in and get my camera to capture whatever was going on.

So when I came back out I saw that she was staring up into the trees. This obviously wasn't one of the feral cats that live in the area. Usually when one of those comes around Isabella goes crazy trying to get at them while they calmly walk by. They're smart enough to know she is on a chain.

So I looked up into the high parts of the trees to see what she was looking at. Can I draw out a story, or what? As I searched through the branches I finally saw what it was that she was staring at. It was a little brown fluff of fur on one of the high branches. That could only mean one thing. Squirrel!

The squirrel also had its back turned toward me for some reason. For awhile I thought it was asleep or something, but then I noticed that it was moving a little bit. It was gnawing on the branch it was on, exactly what Isabella wanted to do to the squirrel.

Isabella had pointed out another animal for me. I immediately knew this was the same squirrel that lives in the closest tree right out there behind my house. Today when I went out the squirrel was in another tree chattering away at me as if it was mad. It finally climbed through the branches over to its home and stared at me for a few minutes before going inside.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

Frost On The Window

2012-01-18T04:00:00.000-05:00

It's down to 1 degree Fahrenheit outside as I write this post. I've been out there several times to fill my wood stove. It didn't really feel very cold until the wind began to blow hard. I had to force Isabella to come back in because she wants to stay out there and bark at every little sound.

She usually doesn't like the cold very much, but she wants to be outside for some reason right now. Maybe that's because just a few short days ago the temperature was springtime warm. She enjoyed laying out there sunning herself. Maybe she misses that now and she's hoping this is just a trick.

The window in the outside front door keeps frosting over for some reason. Maybe it needs to be cleaned. Maybe Jack Frost is drawing his frozen graffiti on my door because he's trying to get us to come out and play. I don't want to play with him because he's a cheater.

I've seen other people share some excellent pictures of window frost so I thought I'd give it a try. Mine are probably not quite as good as some, but it's my first try. And besides, I'm not the real artist of these patterns. Jack will share with me what he wants to share, so I have to use what he gives me to work with.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

It's Just Snow

2012-01-17T04:03:00.000-05:00

Oh no! Are the orbs back? No, it's just a bit of snow. Snow seems to show up very bright in this deep darkness I have here. I've taken many pictures of snow in the past, but without such bright results. Of course I used the flash to get this, but that's the best way to get snow.

The only problem is that the snow is a little bit too bright. When it's so dark the camera has to focus on something, so the snow comes out as these flat white blobs. I would experiment a little bit to get better pictures, but it's not really that fun standing outside in the middle of the night in single digit temperature taking pictures of falling snow.

This must really seem boring after so many days of mystical orbs and then a stupid prank to cap it all off. That's why I'm keeping this post short today. This is my way of easing back into normal everyday nature. If you want more to read then try today's article over at Nature Center Magazine or maybe my latest insane rambling at Rat Tales.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

That Face! That Horrible Face!

2012-01-16T04:00:00.000-05:00

You're not going to believe what happened to me when I went out to confront the orbs, and I don't know if I believe it either! I am shocked, I tell you, shocked! Poor Isabella not only refused to go out there with me, she tried to stop me from leaving the house. But did I listen to her? No! And now I wish I did! I'm not sure if I ever want to go back out there again!

When I got out there I heard a strange howling sound in the wind. No, it wasn't in the wind, it was part of the wind. This did not sound like coyotes. It sounded like voices! I was too stupid to take that as a warning, so I began taking pictures. I wish I hadn't done it!

It was only after the first flash that I finally knew something was wrong. I thought I heard my name coming from the wind, so I dropped the camera and looked up to see it floating there in front of me! It was an orb with a face! Upon seeing it I ran for my life back to the house.

When I got back in and gathered my wits I put the pictures onto the computer and found what I have here for you. You probably have to click on the pictures to see the face, but it's there floating in the air staring back at me.

This next picture above is the same face from the first picture. I cropped it out of the picture and expanded it so you can see it better. Again, you might have to click on it to see it better because it's so dark. For some reason I can only see it on my monitor when I look at it from the side.

After that night I don't think I'll ever be able to forget that face. that horrible face staring at me from out of the darknessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss...

...Wait a minute! I know you don't believe that outrageous story. You don't, do you? Because it's all a big stinking load of manure. The orbs from my other posts were real, but this face was made by me in an image editor. I thought the real conclusion of the story of the orbs was much too boring so I decided to give you something a little better. So what really happened since my last post?

What really happened since my last post is much more mundane. There is only one real mystery. Isabella. Late in the afternoon Isabella's mood changed completely. All of a sudden she came to me and enthusiastically wanted outside. She has been enjoying being out there much more than usual now. I even let her go out and play in the snow for over an hour one time. It's been hard to keep her inside now.

So when nighttime came we went back out to where I got the pictures of the orbs. I took extra pictures this time to see what might show up. I was hoping for something almost as provoking as that face, but you know what I really got? Nothing! No orbs at all. The orbs have completely vanished.

I have no explanation for why they were there, and I have none for why they are gone. I changed nothing with my camera and I didn't clean the lens until after they were gone. The most plausible explanation for them is dust either in the air or on my lens, but never rule out anything. Logic tells us to always first assume that whatever you see is already known, but it also tells us never to rule out the unknown. Until there is a real investigation, the orbs I saw could have been anything.

It may have been a little mischievous for me to play this little prank on you, but those who have been with me here since before my car accident know that I am fully capable of something like this and more. After all, this blog was once taken over by a squirrel named Mister Nutz. Stupid, I know, but it was funny too.

Even if you knew right from the start of the post, or you were completely fooled, I hope you liked this little bit of goofery. Goofery. I just made that up. Now I can't unsay it. I'll be back next time with something much more close to nature. In the meantime, watch those orbs very carefully.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

Stupid Dog Scaring Orbs

2012-01-13T04:05:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about this situation with the orbs, and I'm sure there must be a logical explanation for them. I've seen many scientific theories for their existence from moisture to dust. I'm almost certain that there is no moisture or dust in the air. There may be something on my camera lens, which I have purposely not cleaned since the orbs appeared.

I did this to see if the orbs would appear in the same places in my pictures. The only problem with that is they haven't. These orbs show up in all different places in the pictures, and they also only show up at that one end of my property.

The first time I ever heard of orbs was a few years ago. Brian May, the guitar player of the rock group Queen, was having a very similar experience with them, but his orbs were in the daytime. He also happens to have a doctorate in astronomy. He also did his own investigation. He thought for quite some time that maybe he had found actual spirits until he finally determined that they were nothing more than dust particles. He was even able to reproduce them. I won't investigate that far, but I'm also convinced there is a very logical explanation.

My only real problem with this whole event is that my dog Isabella became afraid of something out there at the very same time I photographed the bright orbs. she rushed me back into the house, and she has been refusing to go back outside ever since. This is a dog that begs to go outside several times a night.

I've had to force her to go outside to use the toilet a few times, but she tries to run from me so she can stay inside. When she gets out there it is all very quick, and she's ready to go back in. I haven't found anything physically wrong with her. She just doesn't want to be outside right now. I still have to go out to refill the wood stove.

But let's move on to something else for now. How many of you have seen Blogger's new commenting system? I've been waiting for this change for years now. Blogger has made it so that we can now reply to individual comments! This is great for those of us who like answering comments. If you want this on your Blogger blog you have to enable embedded comments below the post. It's worth it.

I've been waiting to get that geeky information out for the past two days, but those crazy orbs have taken all of my focus. I plan on going back out at least one more time before my next post to get more pictures of them. If I get more I'll clean my camera lens and then see what happens after more pictures. If that doesn't work I'm going to follow the orbs into the darkness to see how far they go back there.

I feel a strong need to find the solution to the orbs with my limited knowledge and resources. Whatever happens, there will be only one more post dealing with orbs. I'm guessing that they're just a trick of light, but some other possibilities are more fun. I'll be back Monday with my findings. Wish me luck.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

More Orb Strangeness

2012-01-12T04:00:00.000-05:00

I hate to dwell on the idea of the orbs, but I have something new and unexpected for you. I took these pictures within an hour of writing this post. Yesterday I showed you a picture from the same general direction as the one above. It showed perhaps dozens of orbs floating around. I purposely did not clean my camera lens since then because I wanted to see if I could reproduce the same results tonight.

I couldn't reproduce the exact same thing. Instead of so many orbs, there was only this one very bright orb floating in a very suspicious place. This time instead of the gray color of all the others, this one is a tan color. It's hovering right in the same direction of a tree we cut down last week. I'm not sure what to make of that. We cut down that particular tree to make room for my neighbor's future garden. I felt bad about it when we did it, and I'm feeling superstitiously strange about it now.

this orb was so bright that I saw it on my camera's display screen after I took the picture. There are no light sources from that direction, and it is a cloudy night. It was very dark out there tonight. I was thinking that the orb effect from last night was possibly being caused by moonlight, but I don't know where this very bright orb came from. I am mystified.

The first picture was taken as I faced eastward. In this second one I am facing south. As you can see, there is another orb that is suspiciously close to the same area of the picture as the first one. That could indicate that it is the camera lens after all. But I examined the two over and over, and they are not really in the same spot. If you enlarge the pictures you'll see they aren't as close as they look in the post.

Plus if you take a closer look at this second picture you will see that this orb has a bit of motion blur. Either it was moving or my camera was moving. I don't think a spot on my camera lens would show motion blur even while moving the camera. Trying to take pictures at night can easily produce motion blur while trying to focus on still objects, but nothing else in the shot is blurred. This could be easily explained, but not by me.

Another thing I want to add is that Isabella seemed to be in an unusual hurry to leave this area of the property. On most nights she likes coming down here to look around. Usually I have to pull her away, but on this night she kept trying to pull me away. There could have been many reasons for this, but I don't know what they might be in this case.

I took this last picture toward the east again. I tried to get a similar perspective as the first picture in yesterday's post. There are no orbs in this one, not even in the same area as the other two above. There is a distant light source to the middle left in this picture, so that light is not an orb. I took some other pictures, and they also showed no orbs. Some were before, between, and after the two pictures that do have orbs.

I had so much I wanted to write about this time, including Blogger's new commenting system where you can reply to other comments, but this new orb development is too fascinating to just gloss over. This story has to be told until I either find a solution or the orbs finally disappear.

I haven't gone back to that end of the property since I took these pictures because Isabella now refuses to go back outside. Her nightly pee walks are the reason I've been going out there. And I think I don't really want to go out there tonight if she's not with me. I don't know what's going to happen next, but I'm very curious about it.

Nature Center Magazine - Come get some!

The Mystery Of The Orbs

2012-01-11T04:00:00.000-05:00

I've been taking pictures these last few nights to try to encounter a nocturnal animal or two, but instead I encountered something very different and mysterious. Orbs! This is the next best thing to getting a Bigfoot on camera! I'm not the first person to capture these mysterious objects on film, but this is the first time for me.

You may have to click on the pictures to get a better look. I still have the originals on my computer, which are the best quality at 4000x3000, but I had to shrink them down to 800x600 to save space for the blog. I wish I could show you the originals, but this is the way it has to be. I do have a better version of the first picture over at Nature Center Magazine today that we're featuring as a Free Wallpaper.

So, what are orbs? I don't know if anyone knows for sure. There are plenty of scientific explanations for orbs. some say they are artifacts caused by digital cameras, but others say a digital camera would make these artifacts more squared off. Some say they are nothing more than dust reflections, but others ask why then are they not seen all the time in the same spot. Just for fun, let's take a look at the less scientific reasons now.

Many people believe that orbs are actually floating ghosts or spirits in the form of balls of light. Others believe that they are not spirits at all, but that they are really a strange kind of energy being. For more of this type of explanation of orbs, go here. I don't know what I really believe because I don't have enough information to make a definite conclusion.

What I do know is that I've been taking nighttime pictures at the edges of my property for several nights now and I never saw these orbs in my pictures until last night. Have I done something different? No. I've taken the same pictures as always.

The reason I took the pictures you see here is because I heard some strange rustling sounds in the weeds so I pointed the camera in the direction of the noises hoping to get something good. I didn't get the wild animal I was expecting, but I think these orbs are even more fun.

So what do you think these orbs are? Did I go out at night and find glowing spirit forms coming close to investigate me? Or do you think a more scientific explanation makes more sense? Maybe they are fairies? Will I go out one too many times only to find myself mysteriously transported to another world where these orbs came from. Maybe I'll be trapped there forever. I guess we'll find out.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

The Everynight Adventurer

2012-01-10T04:00:00.000-05:00

These pictures are my first attempt to get some good pictures at night. I tried a few things like changing the camera settings to nighttime mode, but none of them have worked so far. The only thing that works is to use the flash. I guess there has to be at least some light.

I haven't heard any animal sounds out there tonight so far, so I haven't tried to record any video. I'll try that if I go back out and hear any snuffling out there in the darkness. The camera usually picks up sound pretty good, and it's always quiet out here otherwise.

This first picture shows one of my outer buildings on the property. It's really just a rundown shed that I haven't even tried to explore yet, but I'll probably investigate the inside next spring. I'm in no hurry because i have too many other things to do right now.

In the background of this picture is the ravine at the edge of the property. There's a creek at the bottom of the ravine. I don't like to get any closer to it in the dark because it's a long fall to the bottom, and I don't know if I could climb out of it even in the daytime.

My dad used to use a water pump to get water from the creek to water his garden that he had nearby. I don't know if the pump is still around, but I'll do the same if I can find it. He did it that way because the garden is too far from the house to get water from there. It can be done, but you need a very long hose.

If it was daylight in this last one, you'd be able to see the large pile of firewood I've been gathering back here. This is far from the house as well, but the wood is still green, so we leave it back here out of the way to dry out until next year. I've been using some of the green wood though because my stove burns it very well.

This is the area where I hear most of the smaller animal sounds. I don't go back there while it's dark because I can't see very well there and I don't want to get too close to those animals in that darkness. They can see much better than I can, and I don't want to make them angry. Isabella doesn't like it back here while it's dark.

I'll go back out to try again with the camera, but maybe not for another few posts or so. Nighttime is good, but I like the light of day jjust a little bit better. Talk to ya next time!

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

They Only Come Out At Night

2012-01-09T04:00:00.000-05:00

When it gets dark I take my dog out for walks about every hour or two for the rest of the night until it's time for bed. Isabella loves her nighttime walks, and they keep her from ever having any accidents in the house. But there are things with us out there in the night.

I've been hearing their calls to the Moon for the last few nights that we've been out. It's the howls of coyotes that I've been hearing. Isabella always cocks her head to one side whenever she hears the howls. I tell her it's the call of the wild and to try to ignore it.

The sounds always come from the distant west. The howls of coyotes sound a little bit different than dog howls. One howl is always answered by others when we hear them. Dogs seem to have deeper voices than coyotes. Whenever I hear those coyote howls I stay extra watchful when I'm at the edges of the darker areas out there, and I make sure the sounds I hear are only in the distance. That way our nighttime walks stay reasonably safe.

I wish the camera could see a little better in the dark. I'd give you some better pictures of the things we see out there. Maybe I'll experiment a little bit more. Nighttime has much to offer that the day just can't. The sights and the sounds, especially the sounds, that are out there are something to behold. I stay away from most sounds I hear out there, but I'd love to share some audio with you.

It would be a great adventure for me to get a picture of a coyote, but predators like these are something to stay away from, especially out there alone. Predators of any kind are the animals that first inspired tales of monsters, and I do not want to come face to face with a monster in the night. That's for someone more experienced.

But it's a thrilling idea. Isabella hears the call of the wild, and she doesn't like it at all. It always makes her more alert, but also very concerned. She always gives me a worried look when those howls come out of the night. I think I'll always be sure to take her advice to stay on guard.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

I'm Tired

2012-01-06T04:00:00.000-05:00

Tired. That's what I am. Tired tired tired! After trying to gather firewood from anywhere I could get it for several days, I overworked myself and made myself sick. On the warmest day we'll probably have for the rest of the winter, I stayed inside and did as little as possible. Now I'll have to keep reminding myself not to overdo things.

Some of you may be wondering why I would work so hard to get firewood when I could just go out and buy it. Because it's free the way I do it. This is the way my dad would have done things himself, so I'm going to try it this way at least for one winter. Besides, free is a really good price. Even if I paid for it, I would still have to do quite a bit of work stacking it where I need it and loading it into the stove, so I really wouldn't be saving myself any work.

Actually, if I wanted to pay, I could just pay to have my propane tank filled, but the free wood is still much cheaper, and it heats very very much better around here. And I've actually had quite a bit of help. My dad taught my closest neighbor how to burn wood too, so we work together. My dad helped that guy when he needed it the most, and he was one of a very few people who has tried to return that favor.

But right now I'm tired. I'm not as tired as I was yesterday though. I've had plenty of rest, and I'll have a little more rest this weekend. But then I'll get right back to collecting more firewood. It has to be done for as long as the weather lets me do it. A hundred years ago everyone around here had to do it this way. They didn't have a backup system like I have. My grandparents were still using wood for heat when I was a kid, and I'm still pretty young.

People my age always rightfully think of their parents as tougher than them, and their grandparents tougher still. Not many people today can even imagine some of the things they had to do. But I want to try some of it. I want a little sample. This blog is about nature, and this is as true to nature as it gets.

I'll never be able to fully understand how past generations lived, and I don't think I want to go that far, but I want to know just a little, a little more than most people. My dad could have lived here without any modern conveniences at all. I can't, and I don't want to try, but I want to be able to tell myself truthfully that I would do better than most.

But I'm tired. This is not easy, and I knew it wouldn't be, but I want to have some small idea what it was like. In a way, it's my own way of trying to make my dad proud of me. I think he would be very happy that I'm using his wood stove. But I'm tired. Right now it's a good tired.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

Bird Interrupted

2012-01-05T04:00:00.000-05:00

I went outside today and upon opening the front door I began hearing something I haven't been hearing around here recently. The chirping of birds! I guess they've been all hiding out, thinking that winter would be here.

But today the temperature was in the 50s. it felt like a warm spring day outside. That's very strange for around here. In years past they would have been buried by snow right now, and the cold weather would keep most people inside.

Instead, I was hearing the sounds of happy birds in my trees in the front of the house. It sounded like am invitation for me to get my camera and come running back out for pictures. So out I came, camera in and. I soon began aiming the lens at every sound coming from the trees.

I quickly picked up a few pictures of this woodpecker. It wasn't quite as close as I'd like, but it was the most brightly colored creature in the trees. Only one problem was troubling me. The pictures were loking kind of funny. I then checked the camera settings to find out they were all wrong!

So I had to stop and take the time to reset everything. Then when I was happy that all of my settings were back where they were supposed to be, I pointed my camera back to the trees to capture more images of happy little birdies.

But then from behind me came another sound. It was a deep scary sound. The kind of sound that makes birds for miles around flee in total terror! "Woof!"

Isabella was having none of this picture taking. That woof sound was dog language for, "Pay attention to me!" I resisted for as long as I could, but the birds had all fled to better trees far away in a paradise where there were no big black monsters.

So inevitably my camera turned towards the only thing left around that was moving, except for an old plastic bag that was waiting to be picked up. Isabella did a great job of posing for the camera. I took many pictures of this oversized camera hog. But only one picture of my dog is very exciting for a random reader, so this is all I'll torture you with.

She thinks she's a star. "Dramatic pose," click!

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

On The Way Home

2012-01-04T04:00:00.000-05:00

Maybe these two pictures in today's post represent where I live now better than any I've shown you so far. See those hills in the background of the picture above? They wrap around the town where I live. I took these pictures while driving home from the city the other day.

One thing I like about these hills is that they go all the way through the state of Iowa. They can be found even within the city south of me as well. Driving through Sioux City, you can see the hills above you as high as mountains in some places.

there is one hill that is named as a mountain, but I don't think it is considered to be a true mountain. There is a difference, but not because of size. I'll have to do some research to find out what that difference is. I think the difference is in how they were formed.

The hills on the right in the picture above border Stone Park that I showed you last week. These are nowhere near the highest places in the park. There are signs on the side of the road near here that warn of falling rocks. And there are more that warn of deer crossing. I've been wondering how deer get down the hill here.

While traveling along this road I also had to stop for several wild turkeys that were crossing. It was only the second time in my life that I've seen wild turkeys. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me that time, but I'm sure I'll get them at some point in the future.

It's been a busy few days for me. I cut down a few trees for firewood. I hated doing it, but that's how it's done. Plenty more trees will grow in their place. All of that was really too much work for me, and I ended up sick for a few days. Staying inside for a couple of days helped, but I'm tired. Being inside was why I had the time to redesign this blog. So I've really accomplished a lot, so I'm happy.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

The New Everyday Adventurer

2012-01-03T04:00:00.000-05:00

There are big changes here at The Everyday Adventurer! Many of you may have already noticed that the look of this blog has changed. I feel very satisfied and happy right now. Even though I loved the old look of the blog, I had one small problem with it: It was designed by somebody else.

One thing I have always believed is that a blog should look good. That's my preference. Some of you may not feel so strongly about that, and that's okay. But I've been designing my own blogs for awhile now, and I like them to look their best. For that reason it was kind of hard to let the old look go.

But I wanted something that was completely unique. The older version is freely available from the original designer, but in another blogging format. I modified that design for my own use on Blogger, and I've always given credit at the bottom of my blog. But over the weekend I had images in my head of something I think is even better, so I began working.

What I came up with is something with a similar feel, but this new one is brighter in some areas, and all of the artwork was done by me. I didn't want a drastic change, but I think a new look will be a refreshing change after years of the old look. Not everyone will agree that the new one is better because the older one was very good, but I like the new one more.

So, what do you think about the new look of The Everyday Adventurer? Be honest, I love constructive criticism. You can see the old version in the picture above. One important thing for me is that I now have a completely unique look that you will not find anywhere else. I think this new look has a bit more depth to it than the old one. And besides, I really love tinkering around with my blog.

Sunset View

2011-12-30T04:00:00.000-05:00

I want to end the week with some recent pictures I took of the evening sky. I had some similar pictures before that I really liked a lot, so when I saw the sky at sunset again I ran over and got some more. This time I decided to do a few different things though. These are even better.

I took these pictures in several different directions and I zoomed the camera in and out to show things in different perspectives. I brought you four of them, but I had many more I wish I could have shared. There's just so much time we all have to read a post though, so I limited this as much as I could.

I took this one above while I was facing directly to the south. it gives a different view of what it looks like at sunset here. The hills in the background are actually much much bigger than the picture shows. I haven't been able to do them justice so far.

I zoomed in the camera just as bit with this one. I wanted to get more red in the picture. I could have just cropped one of the other pictures, but it wouldn't have been quite the same or quite as good that way.

I liked the extra red in the last one so I decided to zoom even closer. They look totally different from each other, and now I have an all red sky in the background. I really love the effects the sky gave me for all of these.

I've had a very busy day, probably unrelated to nature. The town was cutting down a few trees that were in the way, so I followed the workers around and collected the wood that was left over. I need all the wood I can get to heat my house. It was a lot of work, and I did so much that it made me sick. I'm feeling much better now.

I can burn some of the wood while it's still green, and I can store some of the rest for next year. I still don't have enough to last me through the winter because I got here too late and my dad was just too sick to gather any himself. I'm glad I got to be here with him for his final days. I still miss him a lot. He was a remarkable man. He had the knowledge of Crocodile Dundee, but also the temper of Yosemite Sam if you crossed him.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

It's Open!

2011-12-29T04:00:00.000-05:00

Good news, everyone! I did a little bit of research and I found out that Stone Park is not closed for the winter. It is indeed open! It may have been closed on Christmas Day, when I was there. I found out that Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center down the street is closed on most holidays, so that may have been the case for Stone Park too.

There's only one problem with all of that though. that road had obviously been closed for quite a bit longer than just one or two days. Snow was plowed right up to the gate, and it had been there for awhile. That seems to complicate things a bit.

So what I'm going to do when I get time is go over to the nature center and ask someone there why the road is closed. Maybe then I can find the answer to that and many other things I've been wondering about.

Either way, roads closed or open, I'm going to make another trip to the park and see if I can find my way to the top of one of the higher hills. there is plenty of wildlife in this park, and I'm sure I'll see something good, even with the dog along.

Oh, and the picture of the bird's nest at the top of the post? It was one of the interesting things I found right away while I was in Stone Park. It may not seem like much to some people, but it's a sign of life. And that's always a good thing.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

Stone Park Hills

2011-12-28T04:00:00.000-05:00

Today I want to show you some of the hills in Stone Park that you can see right as you go in. This whole park is almost all hills, and big ones. Everywhere you go you are surrounded by these hills. These are the same hills that border the town I live in. You just can't see them in my pictures because of all the trees.

This park really is a very beautiful place. Once I'm able to really explore the park, I'll be able to show you the miles and miles of hiking trails. Most of these trails go up and down hills. I remember years ago being slightly afraid to go down one very steep trail. I still went.

Some of the hills in the park are so high up that you might as well be standing on a mountain. There is one place where you can look over a safety fence at the highway below, and you'll see the cars are so far down that they look like toys. From up there you can see all the way to another state.

I want to clarify something I talked about yesterday. The smell in the park wasn't very bad at all. It was a little bit noticeable that day, but that's how nature is sometimes. The really bad smell I talked about was in another place many years ago. But let's get back to today's story.

I had many more pictures like this from Stone Park on Christmas Day, but these aren't the really great sights from this place. And these are enough for now anyway. I have one more interesting feature from the park I'll bring to you tomorrow, and after that I'll show you some better views of the area between here and my home. Those are really good. Until then...

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

Inside Stone Park

2011-12-27T04:00:00.000-05:00

Even though it was closed, I did it. I parked my truck outside the locked gate. Opened the back and let the dog out. And I walked into the park. That makes me a daring adventurer and a shameless rule breaker! Yeah!

Of course I didn't go very far. I would have just left without ever going in, but poor Isabella had such a pitiful look on her face. We came all this way to go to this giant nature park only to have to turn back around and go home? And poor Isabella rides in a cage when we go on trips. I couldn't disappoint her further.

So we walked past the gate and wandered over to the first fork in the road. Isabella was in heaven, sniffing up all sorts of new smells. When she gets going she sounds like a car with a flat tire, flumpalump flumpalump. I smelled some smells too, but only smells from things that came out of the wrong end of a lot of large wild animals. Uhhhh!

Those bad smells are the kind of thing you have to expect if you like enjoying nature though. It becomes easy to ignore after a few minutes. A few looong minutes! After awhile you begin to associate some of those bad odors with fun adventures, so they're not reqally that bad.

Now, the worst smell I ever smelled came one time when I was over in Nebraska, just across the border from here. Driving past a place with thousands and thousands of cows that were packed very close together. Unfortunately the windows were down at the time, and that smell came right in. I rolled up the windows much too late, but that didn't slow that odor down anyway. I thought I might die that day.

Huh? Oh! Sorry. That was just some sort of bad flashback. Let's finish my story. Even though we didn't stay long enough, the dog got to sniff out several little areas near the parking area. We had a pretty good time, even though it didn't last very long. But after a few more pictures it was going to have to end.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

An Interrupted Trip

2011-12-26T04:00:00.000-05:00

I have a little story today that I guess can only be described as amusingly disappointing. I'm beginning to think that my timing is just off for everything right now. Even so, I still got some pretty good nature pictures from the little adventure I'm going to tell you about. Okay, let's go!

About the time I wrote my last post I decided that I was finally going to visit one of the big nature parks around here. Many of you know that I already tried that once without being able to find the place.

But I knew another place to go, and I knew how to get into that one. This time I was going to visit Stone Park, which is a very well known place to anyone who lives around here. I had plans to go up to the highest hill there and get some good pictures of the countryside. There are some great views from the higher places in Stone Park.

So I packed up on Christmas Day to go to Stone Park. It would be my special Christmas present to me and Isabella. This place is about 14 miles from where I live, but it's a straight shot down the road, so it doesn't seem very far at all. It's actually one of the closest places from my little town. It's just on the north edge of Sioux City.

When I got there everything looked pretty good. The main gates were open, unlike the ones at Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center. Everything should be just fine because the weather is excellent here right now.

I drove in around a curve in the road right after I got the pictures of the sign out front. What looks like a wall of trees in the picture above is only partially trees. Behind the trees is a huge mountainous hill. This park is almost all hills. These hills represent where I live better than most pictures I've shown you so far.

I live on the edge of these hills. The land is flatter if you go east or west from me, but north and south are all hills. I feel an instinctive feel of being home when I see these hills. I'll be saying that a lot whenever I show them to you because it's just so true deep down inside of me.

Okay, this is where it gets rough.

When I got around the little curve in the road, i was greeted with another gate. This one was very closed! It was now fully apparent to me that they had closed the roads here for the winter. Nooooo!!!!!!!

The snow that is piled up at the gate in the picture above is obviously from our only heavy snowfall since I've been here. Most of that melted a couple of weeks ago. But in some places where it has been piled up, there are still some traces of it. There's also a little bit of snow on the road here in the park.

I was more disappointed that I can even describe here. I had come all this way with such enthusiasm, and the park was closed! Well, I wasn't going to let this stop me completely. I parked and let Isabella out and we walked past that closed sign just a little ways.

I made sure I let Isabella sniff out as many interesting smells as I could, and I took some pictures of the surrounding area. We stayed for as long as we could before I decided we had seen all we could see for this trip. All wasn't lost, because we at least got to take a little trip away from the house.

I'll have to find out what the rules are for walking around in the park for the winter. If I can do that then I'll go back again halfway soon. Otherwise, it looks like I'll have to wait until spring. In the meantime, there's still plenty of nature to be seen around here outside of the parks. And I still have plenty of good things from this little trip to share in my upcoming posts.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

Starlings And Stuff

2011-12-23T04:00:00.000-05:00

This European Starling was up in the top of this tree singing his little heart out. I was out looking for birds to photograph, so this presented a perfect opportunity for me. The starlings seem to like these trees around here right now, so I can easily find a few of them every day right now.

These birds are sometimes considered to be invasive pests, but they don't bother me at all. I guess I'm not the one they're invading. Anyway, they are good subjects for my posts, so I won't go too much into the pest thing.

I think this will be one of those rambling posts where I talk about different things though. Let's see... I've been able to stick halfway close to my old posting schedule for the last two weeks now. It feels good to get on here and write whatever strange thing I'm thinking.

And I really do try to make what I write at least a little bit on the strange side, otherwise what fun would this really be? The internet is the best place to write or say any old crazy thing you want. If you aren't already blogging and writing down some of the things that pop into your head, then maybe you should give it a try.

I've been able to really expand the things I write since I started this. One thing I always wanted to do was to write fiction stories. At first I had trouble writing the stories I thought up, but now over at Rat Tales I have some pretty good short stories for anyone to read.

In fact, I just finished writing a story that I consider to be one of my very best. It will be published in about a month, after the end of my current serial and one short bit of oddness that I wrote.

This nature stuff is pretty good too though. Above is that starling in the tree. This picture shows everything a little more like I saw it with my own eyes. It's great to be able to zoom in with the caera to get close up shots of something so far away.

I'm considering going down the road soon to one of the nature parks so I can show you a few good views from the top of the hills around here. I hope I can get myself to do that. It's hard to make myself go too far right now because there's so much to do around here and there's so much nature right outside my door.

I'm going to take the weekend off from posting, but I'm sure I'll be visiting other blogs. I'll be back hopefully by Monday with pictures of a UFO or a Sasquatch or some other strange thing, but I'll most likely have pictures of hills or more starlings or a squirrel or something. Come on Bigfoot, I know you're out there waiting for me!

My Little Red Squirrel

2011-12-22T04:00:00.000-05:00

The pictures you see here were taken by me about three years ago. I enhanced them a little bit last night to bring the color out a little bit. When I was writing yesterday's post about the fox squirrel in one of my backyard trees, I began thinking of this little red squirrel that I encountered a few times in 2008.

The pictures were so similar to each other, so I began wondering what ever became of this little red squirrel. I know I'll never find out, but I hope it is still alive and healthy. the odds of that aren't great, but I still hope.

This was the first red squirrel I ever saw. It looked so different from any other squirrel I ever encountered that I wondered if it was even a tree squirrel at all. I was still kind of new to many things in nature, so I wondered if this squirrel might be some kind of chipmunk.

This squirrel seemed so much more feisty than even other supposed normal squirrels. It ran up and scolded me as I walked towards it, and then it ran away to hide in this small pine tree. It stayed there hoping I wouldn't find it in there, but after a bit of a search I found its hiding place.

I dedicated three posts to this one little incident. I even made a game of finding this little guy in the tree. Many of you might remember it. The beautiful thing about taking all of these nature pictures is that we can go back and look at them over and over as much as we want. This is such a good memory for me.

My little red squirrel, wherever you are, I hope you are well.

Nature Center Magazine - Your starting place for nature!

The Pros of Using an Interpreting Agency

2011-12-21T11:28:00.000-05:00

This is a guest post done for advertisement purposes. The service offered might be of some interest to you. My usual post for today is just below this one.
-Ratty

The Pros of Using an Interpreting Agency.

Travelling abroad although fun, can be a hassle. Especially if you are in a foreign country and are unable to understand the language they are speaking. Whilst a handy phrase book may get you by for a few days or a week, if you are looking for a more long term solution you might want to try an interpreting agency.

Translation companies offer a whole host of services from translating Chinese to English, German to French etc and offer wider options for legal, medical, and technical translation. This is especially useful if you have decided to live and work abroad and need to check visas, permits, employer details or even your mobile phone bill!

Great for businesses that operate overseas, the language barrier can often pose as a threat to acquiring new stakeholders or investments and therefore a translation company is used more often than not. This can also be great in interpreting data between colleagues that are based overseas and will ensure all documents are precise and in correct form.

I know that as an individual, I have never considered using a translation agency before as I am aware of the costs associated with this type of service, however just a brief encounter with somebody that has done so already has left me looking into this further. If I was to ever migrate to another country, I would want everything done properly and so I think that’s really where using a professional to help me with everything would really come in handy.

Hiding Squirrel

2011-12-21T04:00:00.000-05:00

One picture today, yes, just one picture! But it's one that I like. This is the little squirrel that lives in my backyard. I came upon it as it was out visiting some of the other trees and I was out walking Isabella. I must have surprised the poor little thing because I was at a different place than I usually am.

I saw the little squirrel scurrying through the trees, but when he saw me he quickly ran behind these branches and wouldn't come back out. I waited for quite some time, but the little squirrel stayed in this one spot the whole time.

I stood there taking picture after picture hoping to get a clearer view, but I ended up with this same picture about twenty times. Eventually I gave up and went away, probably to this poor little guy's great gratitude. The dog wanted some excitement, so we found her a good place to pee, her favorite thing to do. A short but good adventure.

Rat Tales - Fast food for the mind! All the grease might give you indigestion, but it tastes too good to resist.